Villard
Villard names 2 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Villard HENRY, an American capitalist
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
HENRY, an American capitalist; born in Spire, Germany, April 11, 1835; received a good education; removed to the United States in 1853; and engaged in newspaper work in Chicago. In 1859, as a correspondent for the Cincinnati "Commercial," he was sent to the Colorado gold region; and during the Civil War was a correspondent in Washington, D. C., for Eastern and Western papers. In 1873, as agent for German stockholders, he bought the Oregon and California railroad and the Oregon Steamship companies. In 1875 with C. S. Greeley he was made receiver of the Kansas Pacific railroad. He next formed the Oregon Oregon and Transcontinental Company, which afterward controlled the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company and the Northern Company. In 1881-1884 he was president of the Northern Pacific, and in 1889-1893 was chairman of the board of directors. In 1890 he purchased the Edison Machine Works In Schenectady, N. Y., and the Edison Lamp works in Newark, N. J., and from these organized the Edison General Electric Company, of which he was president for two years. He made liberal donations to charitable, educational, and religious enterprises, and published "The Pike's Peak Gold Regions." He died in Dobbs Ferry, N. Y., Nov. 11, 1900.
Villard OSWALD GARRISON, an American writer and editor
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
OSWALD GARRISON, an American writer and editor, born at Wiesbaden, Germany, in 1872. He was a grandson of William Lloyd Garrison, was educated at Harvard University, and received honorary degrees from Washington and Lee University and from Lafayette College. From 1894 to 1896 he was assistant in United States History at Harvard, from 1896 to 1897 a reporter on the Philadelphia "Press"; and from 1897 to 1918 an editorial writer and president of the New York "Evening Post." After selling this newspaper, he became editor and owner of the New York "Nation." He was president of the board of the Manassas (Va.) Industrial School. Besides numerous magazine articles he wrote "John Brown-a Biography Fifty Years After" (1910); "Germany Embattled" (1915).
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's had Oswald Garrison Villard still alive in 1921, freshly installed as owner-editor of the Nation; he ran it until 1932, and the omission that now looks largest is his part in founding the NAACP in 1909, for which he helped draft the founding call. He died in 1949, by then better known as a fierce isolationist who opposed American entry into the Second World War and broke with the Nation over it. His father Henry's ventures have all been absorbed: the Edison General Electric Company he organized in 1890 merged with Thomson-Houston in 1892 to become General Electric, and the Northern Pacific he twice led passed into Burlington Northern in 1970 and now runs as part of BNSF. The Villard Houses on Madison Avenue, built for Henry in the 1880s, were saved from demolition and incorporated into a Manhattan hotel in the 1980s.
Written for this edition, 2026.